Four Aliens And An Oni

Similar to my Fun With Bitmap series, here's another multi-image compilation made from older art. In this case, characters from the never-ending Ultraman franchise...which for some ungodly reason remains obscure in English speaking countries, minus the occasional freak DVD release of questionable origins.

I'm going to keep this short, for the sake of any future pictures I may do with the said characters.

CLOCKWISE!

First off we have Sukuna Oni, from 1996's "Ultraman Tiga"; now normally I'm not a big fan of that series and its monsters, who for the most part all looked the same, with their similar 'rocky tile hides' and skin patterns. Not to mention the overuse of pastel / silver coloring, confusing anime-style back-stories, and worse of all, the unusually short suit actor who seems to play almost of them.

I want my monsters to tower over my Ultra heroes - NOT the other way around!

But Sukuna Oni is among its exceptions, with his dark red skin, equal height stature with Tiga (Thank God!), and pretty basic origins of being an ancient Oni (Japanese mountain giant / ogre type being) back from the dead and out for revenge. Plus, I love how this monster's design was less traditional Japanese Oni, than it was bad-ass "Dungeons and Dragons" / 'World of Warcraft" style demonology!

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Kemur was an alien villain from the 1965 series "Ultra Q", which was the Ultraman-less predecessor to "Ultraman", with each episode truly playing out like a thirty-minute monster movie. I have not seen Kemur in action myself, but he seems to be one of those aliens in Ultraman whose more monstrous than a typical invader in a flying saucer. He magically, if not nightmarishly, appears and vanishes at will, not to mention stalking victims usually by the cover of night, even as a giant.

Kemur makes a very brief appearance in an episode of "Ultraman", and was later recycled into the unrelated Alien Zetton (different entity then the similarly named monster) for that series' finale. In 2004, a different Kemur Being called Rekyum appears in the remake series "Ultra Q: Dark Fantasy" as that show's final monstrous adversary.

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There's sadly only been a handful of female Ultrans in the long running franchise, and the first one to really kick some Godzilla-buttocks was the Yullian from "Ultraman 80" (1980). The Princess of the Land of Light, Yullian is a childhood friend of the title hero, and joins him rather late in the series against the monster tag-team of Plamzma and Minazma. Her human form was Ryoko Hoshi, and only return as of recently as 2009, in the film "Ultra Galaxy Legends the Movie".

(Okay, to be fair, Ultraman Ace was the first true female Ultra hero, but that's one complicated gender bending / multiple human host issue that I won't get into right now)

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Baltan is perhaps THE most recognizable alien / monster in the whole Ultraman franchise, and yet their moniker as his arch-nemesis is a tad unfair in my opinion...

Like any good fictional race, the Baltans have been both antagonists and friends to the Ultra heroes, and although they've attempted the invasion of Earth on multiple occasions, they never were as evil nor as ubber-powerful as the likes of Yapool, Gudis, Zogu, the Chaos Headers, Reiblood, The Heller Army, The Unknown Hand, Alien Empera, and any other cosmic overlord I may have missed.

But when Baltans are out to get you, they can be very scary monsters indeed, with their insectoid creepiness, creepier baritone laughter (a hold over from the movie "Matango" AKA "Attack of the Mushroom People"), and ninja-like abilities that are more reality bending than mere illusions. No wonder they've been remembered for so long!

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AND Finally, we have one of my all time favorites monsters period, the bizarre Dada from the original 1966 "Ultraman", who are a rather mysterious group of beings, whose reasons for abducting humans for experimentation is never fully explained. They also had the very strange habit of changing their faces between three different forms whenever the camera cut away. And in the English dubbed version at least, the Dada seems to be an all female species, or at the very least, all possessing female voices.

The Dada seen in this picture however, is my own fan re-design, and although it works, the face is too friendly, complete with blue eyes over their usual red ones. Yeah, kind of creepy in its own right, but not sinisterly so.

The Dada's have made limited returns, first in the very obscure American produced (and unsold) series "Ultraman the Ultimate Hero", and briefly in an episode of "Ultra Galaxy NEO". There was also the Gagi; a less successful, if not more humorous homage to the Dada in 2001's "Ultraman Cosmos".

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